Organizing Our Paperwork

Paperwork. UGH! Why is there so much paperwork involved in life? I swear, we are drowning in it!

Every year, right around New Year’s Day, I go through our files and toss, recycle and shred. It’s kind of a big job, but I do a little each day for a few days. I go through and make two piles: papers that can just be recycled, and a LARGE pile of papers with account numbers, etc, to be shredded.

Fortunately, Handy Boy has decided that he likes to shred papers, so that is now his job. We bought a nice cross-cut shredder at Staples, which is nice. After Handy Boy was done, the shreddings filled up a pretty large bag.

As for what to keep and what to toss, here is a good site with some general guidelines for that. I think that having a good shredder is important; you can find a good one at Staples.

Setting up our system wasn’t very expensive. I just bought some hanging folders and tabs at Staples. Rob had his own filing system, and I had mine, but when we became a Handy Couple, I did a major overhaul of everything. I put all of our papers into the hanging folders, and decided to shred stuff that was old and outdated every January, so the files don’t get too stuffed. I have sworn to myself that I will not let our paperwork overflow this one file drawer!

I’ve also been having some fun playing with this label maker that Handy Man’s parents bought for us. Yes, I know, I’m a big nerd.

It’s a brother P-touch and its very easy and fun to use. Handy Boy has been typing silly things into the window and laughing hysterically. sighhhhh

Anyway…what does your paperwork look like? Is it nice and organized? Is it a huge mess? You can tackle the pile(s) 15 minutes at a time, and shred, shred, shred. There’s just a lot of stuff that you don’t need to keep, that can be referenced elsewhere. Start shredding, you’ll be glad that you did!

Oh, I got a labeler for Christmas, too, but I haven’t had a chance to “play” with it yet! We also got a shredder a few years back and BOY is that thing handy! Good for you for getting right on the ball for the new year.